Colby struggles for his life after a brutal beating, as Home and Away returns to Australian screens this week after his summer break, and will the return of an old face rescue Ari and Tane from their extortion hell?
When the 2020 season concluded back in November, Colby Thorne (Tim Franklin) appeared to be in a desperate condition. Colby was on tenterhooks after being jailed for 25 years following his confession to murdering stepfather Ross Nixon, as he wished his identity would remain a mystery on the inside as a copper.
But as the season’s closing scene showed, that was not to be the case. Colby found himself confronted by an imposing group of prisoners, going out into the exercise yard, when one of them then asked him, “Did you really think you would get away with it?” Thorne’s constable? ”
Colby is now in a tough condition, with prison infirmary nurse Lewis Hayes (Luke Arnold) desperately administering CPR on him as we rejoin the action this week. He shouts frantically for an ambulance and when he has a seizure en route to the hospital, Colby’s condition worsens.
Jasmine (Sam Frost) is surprised to see Colby rushing to the emergency room, just the day before she visited him in jail, and he appeared to be in good spirits.
Jasmine knows that Colby’s sister Bella (Courtney Miller) and best friend Dean (Patrick O’Connor) need to see him before it’s too late, with Colby still clinging to life. But she understands that it wouldn’t be tolerated if Colby was under police guard.
With Jasmine and Lewis’ aid, while he and Bella slip in to be at Colby’s bedside, Dean gathers up the River Boys to create a distraction at the hospital.
From the outside, Dean realised Colby would be in immense trouble if he ended up in jail. Dean told her she had almost condemned Colby to death when it was discovered that their friend Willow (Sarah Roberts) was the enigmatic Witness X, and had given testimony to Angelo to prevent both of them from being pulled down by Colby’s actions.
Patrick told TV Week, “Dean is terrified of his friend.” “If Colby died, he would be totally distraught.”
In the meantime, the Parata brothers struggle with their own big challenges, with the clock ticking on the armed robbery they are being blackmailed into carrying out.
The trouble began when Tane (Ethan Browne) took part in a job which went bad for Paul (Jack Finsterer). Tane was left with a truck full of stolen goods to dispose of, which had drugs concealed in the panels, unbeknownst to him.
The van was concealed at the farmhouse after initially parking the van at Summer Bay Auto before being rumbled by Ziggy (Sophie Dillman) while Tane went away to try to arrange its relocation. But Ziggy and Willow took matters into their own hands after days of no touch with Tane and handed it over to some of the River Boys who had made it vanish.
When he came back and saw the van missing, Tane knew he was in trouble and he was advised he had to come up with $25,000 to offset the loss of the missing medication. Paul came up with an alternative after a botched effort by Paul and his ever-grinning sidekick Leon (Will McNeill) to bash some sense into the Paratas, which had them all carried off by the police. Tane and Ari would be able to do an errand for them.
With the debt cleared, the brothers took the job and hoped there that would be an end to it, but even Mackenzie (Emily Weir) was not enough to give Paul her Porsche as another sweetener.
Paul told the Paratas in the final weeks of the season that he wanted them to carry out an armed robbery on the Reefton Lakes league club and tried to insure their obedience by giving them incriminating pictures of Ari and Tane handing the stolen goods from the last job! The message was simple, the theft was committed or the photographs ended up with the police.
Ari was all too pleased to call Paul’s bluff if it meant keeping the family safe, even if it meant himself going back to jail, but Tane knows that Paul is never going to back off. The brothers were told that the burglary was scheduled for next week when the season concluded.
Mackenzie is fuming when she finds out about the jobs in this week’s episodes, and asks Dean if there’s something he can do to help Ari and Tane.
Since Ari’s arrival at the bay, when it was discovered that they had once been cellmates in prison, Dean and Ari had had something of an uncomfortable relationship. But Dean realises that he owes Ari-Ari rescued his neck in jail, and it was Ari who went to Mangrove River to look for Dean to urge him to return to Summer Bay after he fell apart after Colby’s incarceration.
“Dean thinks the Paratas’ scheme has a few holes,” Patrick told TV Week. “He fears that they will be stitched up.”
Dean comes up with a plan to derail the robbery and possibly save Ari and Tane from jail time by placing a call to the boys, knowing that Reefton Lakes is on the River Boys’ patch.
As Ari and Tane meet Paul and Leon in training, the arrival of a group of River Boys, led by none other than Heath Braxton (Dan Ewing), rudely interrupts them!
For some time, Heath’s return has been teased, since we first mentioned his presence back in August during the shooting of these scenes, which were correctly assumed at the time to be the first week of the 2021 season.
Although the return of Heath is nothing more than a cameo appearance, this weekend, Dan Ewing revealed to the Daily Telegraph that there was an unexpected catalyst behind his appearance.
Dan laughed, “Series producer Lucy Addario had a dream about me.” “Okay, well, not me per se, but about Heath coming back to help work out a situation in the return storyline of the 2021 season.”
Will some muscle from the River Boy be able to put a hold on the proceedings and free Ari and Tane from Paul’s grasp on them?
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